Convention agricultural planting practice has traditionally included major tillage, for example, plowing, harrowing, and other steps that have greatly disturbed the ground being prepared. In addition to soil disturbance, such practices require large amounts of time and money, typically requiring expensive, sophisticated equipment. Further, by repeating such tillage year after year, the land's natural ability to protect itself is constantly compromised. Such extensive cultivation also disrupts the life and reproduction cycles of microorganisms and worms. Microorganisms and worms tend to aerate the soil thereby providing an enhanced growing environment for the crop being planted. Both worms and microorganisms are also a continuous source or organic matter that enriches the soil and provides nutrients to the growing crop.
Certain root crops (e.g., carrots, beets, etc.) are best grown in elevated rows. Further, certain irrigation practices require that crops be planted in elevated rows between water conveying channels. The formation of such rows and irrigation channels has in the past presented challenges.
Therefore, there continues to be a need for tillage practices that are less disruptive of the soil than the practices of the prior art when preparing the land for planting a crop. Such enhanced tillage practices would preserve microorganisms and worms found in the top layer of the soil. Further, there is a need for a relatively inexpensive apparatus and method to readily form planting rows allowing irrigation water to flow in channels alongside such planting rows and for use on relatively small plots of land.